This application claims priority under 35 U.S.C. §119(a) on Patent Application No. 2008-137118 filed in Japan on May 26, 2008, the entire contents of which are herein incorporated by reference.
The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus such as a multifunction peripheral or digital copier, and more specifically relates to a display-integrated image forming apparatus in which a large-format display apparatus is integrated with an image forming apparatus, and to an image display system and an image display method.
Recently, many image forming apparatuses such as multifunction peripherals and digital copiers are being installed in mass retail stores or the like such as convenience stores and supermarkets, and such image forming apparatuses are used mainly, for example, when a user that uses the store takes a copy of an original.
Incidentally, in recent convenience stores, the section of the store that faces the street (walkway) is entirely encased in glass, and products are displayed such that people walking along the walkway can view and see the state of the inside of the store at a glance. For example, in an ordinary arrangement pattern as shown in FIG. 30, a wide space-side glass window 501 and a narrow space-side glass window 502 are provided with an entrance 500 between them, a bookshelf 510 is placed along the wide space-side glass window 501, an image forming apparatus A is placed along the narrow space-side glass window 502, and a register counter (not shown) is disposed behind the image forming apparatus A within the store. In such an arranged configuration, conventionally, paper advertisements 505 such as posters are directly applied, facing out of the store, to the walkway-side glass windows 501 and 502, so as to publicise various publicity activities to pedestrians. Publicity activities to customers inside the store are publicised by posting paper advertisements in the small amounts of open space on display shelves within the store.
During such publicity activities, it is difficult to frequently change advertisements, so there is a problem in that flexible publicity activities according to the time of day are not possible, such as, for example, advertising that targets businessmen during a time period of the day in which many businessmen pass by, and advertising that targets housewives and students during the daytime, in which many housewives and students pass by.
Also, the technique in which the walkway-side of the store is entirely encased in glass and advertisements are posted on that glass face is also adopted by real estate companies and the like, so that various real estate advertisements posted all over the glass face wall are provided to passers-by. However, in this case as well, it is necessary for employees to manually remove information on real estate that is under a rental contract or purchase contract, and post new real estate information or the like, and this is problematic in that removal, posting, or the like is frequently forgotten and, therefore, the provided information may not be the newest information.
In addition, as already described above, currently, the image forming apparatus placed in each store is mainly used only when a user of the store takes a copy of an original and is rarely used for other purposes. Accordingly, attempts have been made to improve the usage efficiency of such an image forming apparatus (see, for example, JP 2002-329139A, JP 2002-156873A and JP 2002-55501A).
JP 2002-329139A (hereinafter referred to as Patent Document 1) describes an advertisement information processing system in which a wall display and a printer connected to each other are placed in a store, and when a print button that corresponds to advertisement information displayed on the wall display is pressed, the advertisement information for which that print button was pressed can be printed by the printer.
JP 2002-156873A (hereinafter referred to as Patent Document 2) describes an image processing apparatus that serves as a copier and is connected to a cash register with a LAN, and when a poster image original that has been placed on a platen of the copier is captured, the poster image is displayed on an operation screen of the copier and also on a display apparatus of the cash register via the LAN.
JP 2002-55501A (hereinafter referred to as Patent Document 3) describes an image forming apparatus that has a liquid crystal monitor attached to a front cover or side face cover of the main body of the image forming apparatus, and that is configured to display the output signal from a personal computer on the display portion of the liquid crystal monitor.
As described above, there have been attempts to increase advertising publicity functionality using an image forming apparatus, by connecting the image forming apparatus to a display apparatus, and printing advertising information displayed on the display apparatus with the image forming apparatus, or displaying a poster image that has been captured with the image forming apparatus on an operation screen of the image forming apparatus or on a display apparatus of a cash register.
However, in the technique described in Patent Document 1, it is necessary to install a display along the entire walkway-side wall face, and connect the display to a printer installed within the store with a communications cable, so a lot of installation work is needed, and installation in each store is necessary, so there is a problem in that such installation work is very complicated. There is also another problem in that the layout cannot be changed easily after it is installed once, even when it is necessary to change the layout according to circumstances.
Furthermore, in the technique described in Patent Document 2, although advertising information can be displayed on an operation screen of an image forming apparatus or a display screen of a cash register, this is a publicity advertisement to customers inside the store, and not a publicity advertisement to people walking along the walkway in front of the store. There is also a problem in that by only displaying advertising information on an operation screen of an image forming apparatus or a display screen of a cash register, even most customers inside the store do not notice the advertising information; thus, an adequate publicity effect is not obtained.
Likewise, in the technique described in Patent Document 3, although advertising information can be displayed on the display screen of the liquid crystal monitor, this is a display to the operators of the image forming apparatus, and not a publicity advertisement to people walking along the walkway in front of the store. It is also conceivable to publicise an advertisement to customers inside the store by displaying advertisement information on a liquid crystal monitor, but there is a problem in that by only displaying advertising information on the display screen of such a small liquid crystal monitor, even most customers inside the store do not notice the advertising information; thus, an adequate publicity effect is not obtained.
Furthermore, according to Patent Documents 1 and 2, data such as advertisement information is stored in each of the apparatuses installed in stores and the like, so more storage capacity will be needed as the data increases.
A technique is also adopted in which an image forming apparatus and a large screen (for example, a 50-inch screen, etc.) display apparatus connected by a cable are installed in stores, but in a store such as a convenience store or a supermarket, the issue is to secure as large a selling area as possible, and because placement of two large devices in this manner results in a reduction in selling area, this technique has not been widely adopted. In addition, in a small store, it may not be possible to secure an installation location for such large devices, and so the system is not necessarily advantageous to the store. For example, the outer dimensions of a 52-inch liquid crystal display (Sharp PN-525) are a height of 1254 mm×a width of 742 mm×a depth of 92 mm, and a weight of 44 Kg. The outer dimensions of a liquid crystal display stand (Sharp ID-DS03W) are a width of 917 mm×a depth of 870 mm. The outer dimensions of a digital multifunction peripheral (Sharp MX-3500FN) are a height of 950 mm×a width of 645 mm×a depth of 670 mm, and a weight of 120 Kg. Here, if the liquid crystal display and the digital copier are placed in series, the necessary occupied floor area will be the width: liquid crystal display stand width of 917 mm×the depth: 1540 mm (digital copier depth of 670 mm+liquid crystal display stand depth of 870 mm).
The present invention has been conceived to address the problems described above, and it is an object of the present invention to provide a display-integrated image forming apparatus with which it is possible to provide an adequate publicity effect to walkway pedestrians without requiring a large installation location and with very simple installation work.